Diane Williams reads from her new book of stories, Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty, with Ben Marcus (The Flame Alphabet) and Deb Olin Unferth (Revolution).

In Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty, Diane Williams lays bare the urgency and weariness that shape our lives in stories honed sharper than ever. With sentences auguring revelation and explosion, Williams’s unsettling stories—a cryptic meeting between neighbors, a woman’s sexual worries, a graveside discussion, a chimney on fir—-are narrated with razor-sharp tongues and naked, uproarious irreverence. These fifty stories hum with tension, each one so taut that it threatens to snap and send the whole thing sprawling—the mess and desire, the absurdity and hilarity, the bruises and bleeding, the blushes and disappointments and secrets. An audacious, unruly tour de force, Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty cements Diane Williams’ position as one of the best practitioners of the short form in literature today

The pornography industry is a flourishing multi-billion dollar industry. While this industry makes profits, some relationships are being destroyed by the distortion of sexual relationships. Join Tess Fraad-Wolff in a presentation of her research on the growing dysfunctional psychological and social effects of the porn industry.

“Eating Rotten Meat Does not Disgust them:” Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq (1804-1886) on British Food and Civilization

Of all the questions that preoccupied Arab intellectuals from the nineteenth century onward, civilization was the most important. Arab thinkers engaged European theories of development examining the role of religion and social and political institutions in preventing or bringing about civilization. Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq (1804-1886), an exiled intellectual from Mount Lebanon, modernizer of Arabic language, fiction writer and satirist, and editor of a series of cultural and political journals, deconstructs in his work the discourse on civilization in the nineteenth century. Published after a nine-year stay in England and France, Revealing the Hidden in European Arts systematically undermines European understanding of what it means to be civilized. Pondering its true meaning and engaging it from different angles, al-Shidyaq exposes civilization’s inconsistencies, inherent contradictions, and its violent production through the binaries of race, class, dress, and eating habits.

The Modern School of Film presents a screening of Antichist followed with a talk with Willem Dafoe, focusing on film craft and form.

The Theater Lab
137 west 14th street
$12
reserve a seat at modernfilmschool@gmail.com “Rebel Voices: An IWW Anthology” with Daniel Gross
The impact of the IWW has reverberated far beyond the ranks of organized labor. An important influence on the 1960s New Left, the Wobbly theory and practice of direct action, solidarity, and “class-war” humor have inspired several generations of civil rights and antiwar activists, and are a major source of ideas and inspiration for today’s radicals. Join preface author Daniel Gross in a celebration of a new edition of “Rebel Voices,” by far the biggest and best source on IWW history, fiction, songs, art, and lore.

They Can’t Stop the Push”: Lessons from the University of Puerto Rico’s 2010-2011 Student Strikes

Students at the University of Puerto Rico put together two of the most resourceful and inspiring student strikes in recent history. Against austerity policies and the privatization of public education, combining extensive grassroots organizing with creative tactics, students were able to outwit the administration while rallying popular support around the struggle for an accessible, democratic and quality university. Both of these strikes, with their specific scenarios and outcomes, provide an instructive repertoire of action for the current student uprising in NYC.

Join a conversation with student activists Marimer Berberena and Alicia M. Petru, as they share their experiences and the lessons learned throughout the high and low points of the student struggle in Puerto Rico.

David Gilbert’s “Love and Struggle”
Join David Gilbert’s long time comrades as they read from and discuss Gilbert’s memoir “Love and Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground, and Beyond.” One of America’s most celebrated political prisoners since his appearance in the Academy Award nominated film “The Weather Underground,” Gilbert chronicles the high hopes and hard truths of the 1960s to inform and inspire today’s radical activists. Bisson is PM’s editor of the book; Rosenberg is a former political prisoner and the author of “An American Radical;” and Berger wrote “Outlaws of America,” a history of The Weather Underground and SDS. With Terry Bisson, Susan Rosenberg and Dan Berger.

No one travels quite like Richard Grant and, really, no one should. In his last book, the adventure classic God’s Middle Finger, he narrowly escaped death in Mexico’s lawless Sierra Madre. Now, Grant has plunged with his trademark recklessness, wit, and curiosity into East Africa. Setting out to make the first descent of an unexplored river in Tanzania, he gets waylaid in Zanzibar by thieves, whores, and a charismatic former golf pro before crossing the Indian Ocean in a rickety cargo boat. And then the real adventure begins. Known to local tribes as “the river of bad spirits,” the Malagarasi River is a daunting adversary even with a heavily armed Tanzanian crew as travel companions.

Half King7 pm505 W 23RD STfreeDigging In: An American Archaeologist Uncovers the Real Iran
In 1974, Dr. Linda Jacobs was invited to participate in an archeological dig in Iran. Digging In: An American Archaeologist Uncovers the Real Iran (Kalimah Press, 2011) reveals an Iran that the West never hears about. This book describes the practice of archaeological excavations, the history of the region, and the early civilizations that inhabited present-day Iran as well as the author’s story of self-discovery. Jacobs shares with the reader her emotional journey to understand Iranian culture that felt both strange and familiar. In spite of class, culture, and language differences, she and the villagers, who hosted her, formed a friendship that has withstood the test of time, distance, and political revolution. Dr. Jacobs will share stories and photos of her hosts when they first met and in 2008.

Spanning 1969-1974, Sixties Pop Icons, Unseen reflects the pursuit by a young photographer, of, among others, Jimi, Joan, Janis, Grace, Mick, Keith, Jim, CSN&Y, Joe, and Sly
“This exhibit is the story of a young man who took a work study job at his university and ran with it—” says curator Anna Van Lenten, “—ran to Atlanta Pop, to Atlantic City, to Woodstock, to Bob Dylan and The Band on tour—and in between, Miami, to catch Jim Morrison in 1970 on trial for obscenity charges. Then he put his negatives in a box for 35 years. Now, we get to unearth those negatives and hear what Bruce has to tell us about his encounters.”

Michelle Haimoff’s paperback original These Days Are Ours (Grand Central Publishing) is a sensitive and witty coming of age story that focuses on a directionless college grad as she returns to live with her wealthy New York City family just six months after 9/11.

Publishers Weekly gave Jeanette Winterson‘s new book a starred review, and said “Raw . . . A highly unusual, scrupulously honest, and endearing memoir.”

Jeanette Winterson’s bold and revelatory novels have earned her widespread acclaim, establishing her as a major figure in literature today. She has written some of the most admired books of the past few decades, including her internationally best-selling first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, the story of a young girl adopted by Pentecostal parents.

Witty, acute, fierce, and celebratory, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a tough-minded search for belonging-for love, identity, home, and a mother.

Sugar is none other than Portland-based author Cheryl Strayed, and she will be reading at her big coming-out bash from her new memoir, WILD: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (Knopf), on shelves March 20. Come meet Cheryl/Sugar, and to celebrate her work with a fantastic lineup of special guests, including authors Pam Houston, Paul Lisicky, Mary Beth Williams, Stephen Elliott, Elyssa East, Max Fenton, Emily St. John Mandel, Alexander Chee, Gabrielle Hamilton, Aryn Kyle, David Gutowski, and your hostess for the evening, Miss Rachel Syme.

In Island of Vice, Richard Zacks paints a vivid portrait of the lewd underbelly of 1890s New York, and of Theodore Roosevelt, the puritanical, cocksure police commissioner resolved to clean it up. Writing with great wit and zest, Zacks explores how young Roosevelt goes head to head with Tammany Hall, takes midnight rambles with muckraker Jacob Riis, and tries to convince two million New Yorkers to enjoy wholesome family fun. When Roosevelt’s crackdown succeeds too well, even his supporters turn on him, and TR discovers that New York loves its sin more than its salvation.

Vin Diesel stars in this autobiographical short film about his experiences auditioning in New York. Diesel finds himself at the distinct disadvantage of not being Black enough or Italian enough for the roles for which he auditions.

Commentator and journalist, Touré, defines and demystifies modern Blackness in his new book, Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black Now. He is also the author of Never Drank the Kool-Aid, Soul City and The Portable Promised Land.

7 to 9 pm at the brooklyn public library/dweck center
10 grand army plazafree

This German television (ZDF) documentary explores the 1938 expedition to Tibet led by Ernst Schäfer, with the support of HeinrichHimmler. The expedition sought to find proof for some of the more far-fetched mythic theories about Aryan origins.

During Ask Roulette, strangers ask each other any question they want, big or small, in front of a live audience. It’s not as intimidating as it sounds. In fact, it’s built on trust — you can only ask a question once you’ve answered one. If you prefer, you can just be part of the crowd.

Highly publicized diseases like Ebola and swine flu are only some of the many viruses that spread from animals to humans. Join virologist Nathan Wolfe and computational biologist Daniel Janies as they discuss their efforts to track infectious agents in animals before they reach people. Traveling from the jungles of the Congo to the marketplaces of China and using supercomputers and Google Earth, these two virus hunters are on a mission to stop the next global pandemic.

Garvey was a Jamaican immigrant, who between 1916 and 1921 built the largest black mass movement in world history. The first comprehensive documentary to tell the life story of this controversial leader, the film includes fiery interviews with sons and daughters of “Garveyites” who reveal how revolutionary Garvey’s ideas were to a new generation of African Americans, West Indians and Africans and how he invested hundreds of thousands of black men and women with a new-found sense of racial pride.

6:30 to 8:30 at the brooklyn public library/dweck center
10 grand army plazafree

Whitehead discusses his new novel, Zone One, with WNYC’s Leonard Lopate. In the near future, a global plague turns most of humanity into zombies. The military drives out the majority of the undead from an area south of Canal Street–the safe area known as Zone One.

4 to 6 pm at the brooklyn public library/dweck center
10 grand army plazafree

Dimitar Sasselov, a professor of astronomy at Harvard University, created the term “Super-Earths” to describe planets orbiting distant stars that are slightly larger than Earth and could harbor life. Join Sasselov for a discussion of new types of planets, new life-forms, and the Copernican revolution.

The Worm in the Big Apple is a story of trying to survive in New York, based on the real life experiences of the ensemble. Tragedy and triumph, humor and humiliation; created and performed by the 13th Street Housing Works community.